


shinkai

by kaegays



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Gen, NOTHING IS EXPLICITLY HORRIBLE, ah hm hm how to explain this fic actually its just...... hmmmm, i really dont think i'm capable of explaining this actually hopefully things should be clear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:04:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaegays/pseuds/kaegays
Summary: "…What Mika is being faced with is not a god in which to project his bitterness and anger and envy and problems, but a normal boy who’s as blue as the water they’re in and surely not much older than him. It’s just another kid, even with all the things he’s been told throughout his years here.And the revelation leaves him absolutely speechless."





	1. Chapter 1

Ragged clothes and dirty feet, knotted mop of hair and calloused hands, Mika stands out starkly against the pristine and pretty halls he’s being led down and even against the scene outside, pulled and taken in from the dirty garbage dump spots of Kansai into the far off of the dark ocean. It’s dark and unknown and scary, the artificial lights surrounding the area making for a pretty and glittering view surrounded in a menacing void. It’s scary, it’s really scary.

 

But it’s what he’ll have to get used to now, they were kind enough to take him in, he ought to swallow it up and be grateful they cared to do this when they didn’t have to. He shouldn’t whine of his fear, and so he’s kept silent the whole way thus far, nodding his head and such where necessary. It’s fine, right? It’s preferred? Please don’t let him have already messed it up, this place is so nice…

 

Dread piles up in his stomach and fear sticks to his throat and shuts it tight as he marches forward, fists clenches til they turn white and jaw set. He’s prepared for the worst of this.

 

And it doesn’t come. Not yet. He’s guided into a nice bathroom with nice clean clothes laid out off to the side and a bath and shower ready to be used. They help him out of his clothes and discard them into a bin, and they help him as he struggles to operate the facilities and clean himself. They help with his knotted up hair and they use soaps and shampoos that smell nice and it’s warm and clean and by the end of it he looks a little closer to presentable and is certainly a lot cleaner and even a little more knowledgeable about things.

 

…It felt nice to be pampered, even if he doesn’t deserve it.

 

Of course it’s not going to be like that the whole time, even as he’s being helped into clothes he wasn’t so sure about. He’s pretty sure this is a girl’s outfit, and though he opens his mouth to point out that he’s definitely a boy and they saw that, right? He’s shut up by them continuing on to explain why they brought him here, what his duty would be from now on after his training, how he ought to be grateful they saw the potential in him.

 

He is grateful, really. He’s being given shelter and clothes and warm water and a guarantee of food to eat if he so decides he needs it. It’s safety and a place to stay, there’s no way he wouldn’t be grateful for this. He’s not going to complain about all these duties he doesn’t fully understand, and he’s not going to complain about being put to work. Nothing is done completely selflessly and he’s not going to ask them to let him have it easy when they could’ve left him to rot. No matter how hard the training is, he won’t cry and he’ll accept it wholeheartedly.

 

They just smile down at him as he says as much aloud, thick in his Kansai accent and childish misspeaking.


	2. Chapter 2

Two years later is when he’s finally deemed ready to meet the person his duties involve and begin his work. It was painful and ache inducing and he’s not even sure how much of it was housework and how much of it carried the implication of giving his life for the boy, but at 7 years old he’s just glad to be over and done with it, even if it wasn’t that long at all in reality. It was exhausting and he’s ready to move on to mindlessly enacting what’s asked of him if it means he doesn’t have to suffer through more of that.

 

‘An exceptional student’ they called him, huh. He’s kind of afraid of what’ve happened if he’d been any less. It’s an unpleasant thought that churns his stomach before he’s even entered the bedroom; he isn’t shaking nor is he crying nor even whimpering, it’s a quiet anxiety that builds in the pit of his tummy and aches in his chest, but never stings his eyes. This could make or break everything, he has to make the best impression on him  _ever._  Sucking in a breath with the resolve to do so steady in his head, he brings his hand to the handle of the door and turns, pulling it open with just enough force as he opens his mouth to make the best introduction he could muster–

 

–And is met with a weird sight that steals his words away.

 

This probably shouldn’t seem so weird, but that’s part of what is  _making_  it weird. Instead of some untouchable person he can easily imagine as a god, what he sees is a boy his age with funny fish toys and a smile on his face as he plays with them contentedly. The look he gives him isn’t hostile or condescending as much as it is curious, eyes wide and smile dropping into something more small and open mouthed. The words out of his mouth are weird somehow, and he speaks slowly, but the voice itself is completely normal as he asks “Who are ‘you’?”

 

…What Mika is being faced with is not a god in which to project his bitterness and anger and envy and problems, but a normal boy who’s as blue as the water they’re in and surely not much older than him. It’s just another kid, even with all the things he’s been told throughout his years here.

 

And the revelation leaves him absolutely speechless. A beat passes, two, three. The being known as ‘Shinkai Kanata’ simply tilts his head at him, waiting for a response. It’s only then that Mika can find it in himself to pick the lost language back up and use it like he’d meant to.

 

“Uuum!” It’s shrill and stilted, not at all how he’d intended to start off and nowhere near as eloquent. He steels himself and steadies his voice, hoping with a swallow that this would come out even a little smoother from here. “Kagehira Mika, sir. I’m s’pposed ta be yer maid from now on? Uh, I hope we can get along from now on, I’ll be in yer care! Er, or uh, you’ll be in mine? I’ll do my best!”

 

Nailed it, yup, nailed it. He really did… Not, that was really awkward and awful and he can feel how bad it was in his bones and crawling in his skin as Kanata stares him down in dead silence that rings in his ears in the absence of any noise.

 

Finally, as though he’s simply radiating these bad feelings, he’s smiled at like he’s being reassured that everything is fine, as he softly says that “It’s ‘nice’ to ‘meet’ you~”

 

The scales of fate shift.


	3. Chapter 3

In the first months of his duties, Mika has learned a lot just as much as he’s taught a lot, whispered little lessons snuck into the dead of the night; it’s not as though he was ever smart or educated, but he’s seen the world and been drug down into the worst of it’s offerings. He leaves out the harsh as much as he can, tells Kanata of orphanages and parks and whatever else he actually knows. He’s frank about what he doesn’t know and he’s frank about not being able to even count beyond some rough basics, just as Kanata is frank about having never seen the land and frank about not knowing lots more than Mika could ever dread not knowing about. It’s nice that Kanata has the luxury of saying he doesn’t know what loneliness is, but a voice in the back of Mika’s head reminds him that he’d been saying the same thing before he clung to the first strangers to give him even a shred of attention.

 

Whereas Mika passes on stories about life on the land and knowledge you can’t learn anywhere but the streets, Kanata tells him tales of legends far beyond their years and shares his tutoring, tales of meteors and sacrificial feasts and stories of lonely old ladies and a mysterious boy with violet eyes who could do anything, how to scavenge for scraps and why you’d have to do that and how to read and why that’s important to know, though neither have coherent explanations that fully make sense. Vague complicated speech and excessive filler, “People don’t care all the time” and “’Knowledge’ is ‘power’” that’s just parroting the adults when they don’t really get it. Mentions in passing of a boy who’s name Mika trips over every time and he’s pretty sure he hears echoing down the halls some days.

 

(Some days is more often than you’d think)

 

Kanata gets fascinated by everything it feels like, and though it’s usually so mundane to someone like him, it’s an infectious enthusiasm every time Kanata gets into learning about something as simple as a mall. Mika’s never bought from one, but he’s loitered there on unbearably hot days til he’s told to leave or approached by a weirdo, so he has passing familiarity. There’s a boy who’s always roughhousing with another kid, apparently he lives above one of the shops, Mika’s spoken to him once or twice.

 

It didn’t go anywhere. They’re not friends. He just knows him because he’s always there and he lives there.

 

Despite the relative mundaneness of it, Kanata is so interested so excitedly that you really can’t  _not_  get sucked into it, so Mika smiles anyways despite just mostly having a bitter impression of things. Kanata is infectious in a lot of ways, good and bad, but Mika doesn’t have it in him to mind this infectious person sucking him in.

 

It’s kind of nice, even though he’s losing track of what he’s supposed to be doing.

**Author's Note:**

> so funny story this actually came up in a dream i had foreeeever ago and it was good fic fodder  
> rlly weird au. rlly detailed too. might continue working with it if there's interest? who knows! its weird!  
> hopefully things are clear enough but i'm open to questions  
> there's still more places i wanted to go with it but like..... hmmmmm haven't been able to write in a while  
> hopefully even just this much has been enjoyable though!!!


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